Category Archives: home school

Kai started Kindergarten today. We are technically starting a year early since he was 12 days shy of the cut off date for this year’s Kindergarten classes, if he was attending public school. But we homeschool, so we can start early and take our time learning the basics. 🙂 Anyways, when I told him that it was time to start Kindergarten this morning, he smiled, then made a sad face. I asked him why it was making him sad to start school, since he has been asking about starting Kindergarten for a while. He told me that he doesn’t want to start school because then he will have to go to college someday and leave me. What am I supposed to say to that?! We got some extra snuggles this morning and then we did some reading and math. I told him that he can stay with me forever, but that when he’s older, he’ll probably want some time away from Mommy sometimes. He looked at me like I wasn’t right in the head. LOL! I love my sweet snuggly boy to bits!!!!!!

One of Mia’s spelling words for this week is “injure”. We always go over the definitions of all of her spelling words. She giggled a little bit when we got to “injure”. She told me that when she was little, she thought that “injure” meant “to get better or to heal”. So she said she used to tell people who were sick or hurt, “I hope you get injured!”. I never knew this!!! LOL!!! Can you imagine a sweet faced little girl seeing you sick or hurt and telling you, with a smile on her face, “I hope you get injured!”. So to any of you who she has told this to, she truly was trying to wish you well! 🙂 She said that someone (can’t remember who) finally told her that they didn’t think “injure” meant what she thought it meant. The things that kids say… <3

“If you want to keep your kids from reality and turn them into mindless automaton copies of yourself, homeschool them.”

“If you wish to teach your children such nonsense, then homeschool where lame propaganda can remain unchallenged.” (this one shows up on the mobile version of dictionary.com)

I’m not exactly sure how they choose their sample sentences (I can’t find any info on their site), but I read from another person that they are randomly picked from sources online. However, the bias of these sentences doesn’t seem all that random to me.

Happy 4th of July!!! Unfortunately, we live somewhere with extreme wildfire danger, so we aren’t allowed to set off any “fun” fireworks. We plan on watching a city firework display at my in-laws house tomorrow night. It will be a good view, but the actual display is a little ways off, so you don’t get to feel that “boom” rattle your bones… I LOVE that. 🙂 Some of my best summer memories were watching fireworks near the waterfront in VA… seeing the fireworks and the reflection over the water is wonderful!!! I always miss living in Virginia Beach whenever it’s time for fireworks. Hurricane season… not so much. And the mosquitoes… totally don’t miss those! If NM was beachfront, it would be the perfect state for me… it’s hot in summer, cold in winter, mountains with snowboarding/hiking/camping, not many skeeters, there’s the Rio Grande, big lakes… Anyways, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, Happy 4th of July, Everyone!

This year has flown by so far and most of it has been a big sleep deprived blur to me. I’m so thankful for pictures because without them, I’d probably think I was just nursing a baby for the whooooole first half of the year. Oh wait, I mostly was… but no pictures of that… that would be weird.

Kai is now 9 months old. He’s on the verge of walking!!! He has actually taken a step and a half in recent days. Not long now, then it’s serious baby chasing time. He’s still not sleeping through the night. DON’T recommend letting him cry himself to sleep to me. The other night, I forgot to turn on the baby monitor, so I didn’t hear him wake up during the night. I slept really well, until 7, when I noticed it was light outside. I went to Kai’s room and I heard him whimper crying with that hyper ventilating “sniff, sniff”. Now keep in mind, he pretty much ALWAYS wakes up at 3:30 am or 4 am every night. Poor thing had probably been crying for HOURS… and never once did it occur to him to just go back to sleep. I picked him up and nursed him, and he was knocked out so quickly because he was so exhausted… Yep, I pretty much felt like the worst Mommy EVER. His poor little voice was hoarse that day. 🙁

Sean and I are still finishing up 2nd grade in our homeschool… we AREN’T running late. We follow a round the year schedule where we school for 6 weeks, then take a week off. This way, it allows for vacations throughout the year during non-peak times, and reduces our burn out. Plus, we (meaning I) don’t have to suffer through so much stinky review after 2 months of brain coma during a summer vacation. We should finish around early or mid August, then have 2 to 3 weeks off before beginning 3rd grade.

Mia will be starting pre-K this Fall. She turned 3 in January, and has been asking to “do” school. I originally planned on waiting until she was 4 to start, but I think I should take advantage of her enthusiasm. I’m a little skeered to start schooling 2 kiddos! I’m sure it will take some tweaking of our schedule to figure it out… By that, I mean I’ll probably really have to come up with a schedule and stick to it.

So yeah, it’s July! It’s mine and Nathan’s birthday month (We share the same birthday, yes we do!) and both our mommies have b-days this month too. Ugh… I’m turning 35 this month… I’m ALMOST old. I remember thinking my mommy was old when she was 36… SORRY MOM!!! That’s pretty funny, because anyone who knows my mom, knows that she will never grow up old. 🙂 Love you, Mom!!!

I finally finished the lesson plans for our 1st 6-week session for our homeschool. We school mostly year-round, going for 6 weeks, then off for a week. This schedule works for us and helps us not to get too burned out, but also prevents us from having to do much review after taking breaks. Sean will be starting the 2nd grade tomorrow! We’re starting early this year (August 1st), so that we can take a whole month off after this 6-week period since that coincides with when the new baby will be born (assuming that he doesn’t try to make an early appearance, that is).

I’ve had Sean’s books since about late June or early July, but hadn’t started lesson planning until last week. Procrastination = how I roll. It’s looking to be a fun and busy year. Sean says he is most excited to start learning Spanish. We’re also hoping to get him enrolled in the Homeschool Arts/Crafts and PE classes at our nearby community center again. He really enjoyed that last year.

Mia is also excited to “do school”. Nathan and I joke around that she is like me, and likes to do “scholarly” things… she is always getting out some sort of flash cards and asking to do them with us. I always asked my mom to buy me workbooks and things like that so I could do more school stuff at home. I know… nerd, huh? 🙂 So while I was organizing all of our books this year, I made bins for Sean’s books. my teacher’s manuals and one for Mia’s “school work”. It will be nice to have all her markers and papers all in one place so she can join us during school.

I’m very thankful that I have the opportunity to invest all this time in teaching and training the kiddos. Thanks to my wonderful husband for all of his support!!! Not just workin’ hard fo’ da money, but all the dishes he washes, grocery shopping he does, diapers he changes, toys he puts away, tense shoulders he rubs :), kids he plays with (so I can get a quiet moment), never complaining when the house is a disaster or has a hard time finding clean socks, and for just all the LOVE he shows our family… you da bomb, baby!

I found a website that has a template to create your own home school ID cards for both students and teachers. I thought this might be helpful since there are often businesses that give discounts to students and/or educators but they often require an ID card. You can upload a picture to put on the card as well. The free version lets you print the card on your home printer (maybe a heavy card stock would be good), or you can pay $6.95 to have them print it a laminate it for you. That’s not that great a deal since you can print at home and have it laminated locally for cheaper than that.